Creamy roasted Thai pumpkin soup
I love the simplicity of this soup – bung everything in the oven to roast, then zap it all up into a smooth, creamy, aromatic soup. The flavours are lovely and adds a little freshness to your winter soup lineup. If you need this to be vegetarian, use vegetable stock – you can also leave out the fish sauce and add more salt at the end. This is also dairy-free and can be gluten-free if you use a GF stock.
Prep time – 30 minutes
Cooking time – 1 hour 15 minutes
Serves 8
Ingredients
2kg crown or butternut pumpkin
2 whole bulbs garlic, unpeeled
3 large shallots, quartered (or use 1 large onion)
2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
3 sticks lemongrass (or ¼ cup lemongrass paste)
¼ cup roughly chopped ginger
2 whole large red chillies (or 1 tsp chilli flakes)
2 tbsp peanut or rice bran oil
1 ½ tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp ground cumin
5-6 cups vegetable or chicken stock
400ml can coconut cream (not light)
1 x bunch coriander, leaves and stalks chopped separately
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp lime juice
½ tsp fine black pepper
Method
Preheat the oven to 180c regular bake.
Scrape the seeds out of the pumpkin and discard. Chop the unpeeled pumpkin into rough 7cm chunks. Add to a large roasting tray with the shallots (or onion), celery, the garlic bulbs, lemongrass, ginger, chillies (remove the seeds from one or both chillies if you don’t like any spiciness – but I like to leave them in) oil, brown sugar and cumin. Season generously with salt and pepper, then toss to coat everything evenly.
Bake in the oven for 45 minutes, stirring about half way through. Increase the temperature to 200c fan bake and bake another 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and wait until cool enough to handle.
Peel/slice the skins off the pumpkin. Squeeze the garlic from their skins. Discard all the skins and add the garlic and pumpkin flesh to a soup pot (your largest saucepan). Add all the rest of the roasted vegetables as they are. Add the stock, coconut cream and the chopped coriander stalks. Cover, place over a medium heat and bring to a simmer for 15 minutes.
Remove the lemongrass stick (if using).
Using a stick blender, carefully puree the soup until it’s very smooth – or, cool it down first and put into blender or food processor in batches, watching out for splatters.
Add the lime juice, fish sauce and black pepper and season to taste with salt if needed.
Stir through the coriander leaves just before serving.
If you think it needs more fish sauce, lime juice or chilli to taste, feel free to add these in.
Serve a little extra chilli if you like, or an extra swirl of coconut cream (or yoghurt) and extra fresh coriander.
Tips/storage
- If you don’t have a stick blender you can use a food processor or a blender to puree the soup, but you must wait until the soup has cooled to warm to avoid a hot soup explosion.
- If you can find fried shallots at your supermarket or specialty food store, these make a truly delicious garnish.
- This soup keeps for a week in the fridge, and can be frozen for up to three months.
Tastes great. What difference would it make if I peeled the pumpkin first?
This soup is so good! I added a good heaped teaspoon of thai red chilli paste too for a wee bit of extra kick
Thankyou for the recipe
Does it freeze well
it sure does x
Just making this soup for a catering job. Trialling it first. Couldn’t get fresh lemongrass or paste but have a jar of pieces. Added about 1/3 the jar. Will I just blend them up with the other vegetables as I can’t see me picking them all out. I will add some of the juice when I put all the veggies in my Instant Pot.
I have a family of 4, 2 adults 2 teens all love this recipe. I usually half the quanties & there’s always plenty. Never use lemongrass as don’t have that & use about 1/4tsp of chilly flakes which give it enough bite for this family. Thanks Chelsea made it for the 3rd time tonight.
Hey Chelsea.
Would it affect it too much if I left out the lemongrass and celery?
Also would it also work in crockpot?
If you use lemongrass paste do you roast in it or add it in once you’re blending??
Hi, did you end up using Lemongrass Paste? When did you add it?
Yummo – I made this tonight. It was so easy and the flavour was amazing.
Yum Chesley, this was absolutely beautiful. Truely love all your recipies. I am a huge fan xx
Very nice – even the teenagers who are the toughest critics thought it was delicious.
This has gone down a treat with everyone in my family. Although I did not have lemongrass the rest of the ingredients I grew. Lovely flavour and more than proud to serve it to others. Top marks p.s. 8 children (adults) in family.
Great soup ,made it the other weekend when it was cold and wet , had heaps left over So put it the freezer for late, still eating it and will have to make some more as nearly run out
Would Coconut milk instead of coconut cream be okay? Would you adjust anything else?
Sure :)
Yum – was a little more effort than I usually do to make soup but it is so worth it.
Best Pumpkin soup ever…made it yesterday and its gone so I’m making it again today lol…
Used lemongrass paste as no sticks in store, just mixed it all in with the cumin,oil etc and roasted with the vegetables..beautiful..
I have just made for the first time..not really a soup fan by OMG I love it!!!
Thank you Chelsea xx
Chelsea, if using lemongrass paste do you still add it with the veges for roasting?
No you can just add it in at the last cooking stage :)
We were just talking about soups and then you pop up on my Facebook feed! Perfect recipe and I’m making it tomorrow ❤️ Thank you!!
Cnn I freeze this soup Chelsea as I am making a double batch ? thanks
You sure can!
First time ever that I made pumpkin soup, and its just AMAZING!! Thank you very much :) <3
This is the best recipe for Thai Pumpkin soup I’ve ever tried. 10/10
A friend made this soup for a dinner party . The best soup I have ever tasted!
Anyone loved it . If you enjoy Thai flavours it’s for you .
Fantastic Chelsea, another of your amazing recipes!
With thanks
Joce
Looks yummy. Do you need to prep the lemongrass before roasting
Just made this today and it has to be one the best pumpkin soups EVER! This will be a favorite from now on.
One of the best healthy soup that i had tried. Its looks so good & the recipe is so simple . Thank you for sharing with us.
I have just made this soup and put it in the crock pot to keep warm. It is SOOOOOO DELICIOUS!!!! I don’t think there will be any left by dinner time. :D yummmm thanks
Love that soup
I’ve made it so many times
And doing it again tonight
Thanks for that awesome recipe Chelsea ????
Sounds delicious! Would it matter if the coriander was left out? Not a fan…
Not at all.
Love this soup. It’s an absolute winner and so straightforward. Thank you
Just made this today and it is devine! A new fav ??
Best pumpkin soup EVER ?❤️??
Chelsea I love you so much but are you SURE to add that much garlic??
Yeah man! The flavour goes quite mild when roasted :)
Just wondering what I could use to replace the fish sauce as we have a fish allergy in our house. Thanks.
You can just leave it out :)